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African Studies Library

Your one-stop-shop for all things African Studies at the University of Cambridge & beyond

African Languages

Language Resources Online

  • LEXILOGOS: An incredible collection of about 40 countries in Africa and their languages. It has dictionaries and a translation / phonetic writing tool. Click the country you're interested in, then scroll down to the Resource section to see the languages it covers.
    • Check out their multilingual keyboard feature which covers the following African Languages:
      • Amharic (Ge'ez and Latin)
      • Berber
      • Coptic
      • Creole
      • Egyptian (Hieroglyphs and Latin)
      • Ewe
      • Fon (Fɔ̀ngbè)
      • Fulani
      • Hausa (and Hausa Arabic)
      • Lingala
      • Somali Osmanya
      • Swahili (Arabic)
      • Tigrinya
      • Tuareg
      • Wolof
      • Yoruba
  • African Languages: This website contains information about African Languages, and other African Language related resources. Currently mostly only the South African languages are covered, as well as Kiswahili and Cilubà.
    • This has a great Swahili dictionary that outlines noun classes, translations and related terms.

Recommendations for improving this page are welcome - email us this link with your thoughts at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk.

Under construction!


Recommendations for improving this page are welcome - email us this link with your thoughts at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk.

Under construction!


Recommendations for improving this page are welcome - email us this link with your thoughts at afr@lib.cam.ac.uk.

Books

Anthropological Linguistics / Perspectives from Africa (2024) - available Open Access: 

This collection presents new research on key topics in anthropological linguistics, with a focus on African languages. While Africanist linguists have long been concerned with sociocultural aspects of language structure and use, no comprehensive volume dedicated to the anthropological linguistics of Africa has yet been published. This volume seeks to fill this gap. The chapters address a broad range of topics in anthropological linguistics, including classic themes such as spatial reference, color, kin terms, and emotion, as well as emerging interests in the linguistic expression of personhood, sociality, and language ideology. All contributions are based on original empirical research and present insights into African language practices from a sociocultural perspective. The volume showcases research on dozens of African languages spoken across the continent, with particular emphasis on languages of East Africa. This book will be of interest to areal specialists as well as to anthropological linguists worldwide.

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